The Special Collections home to a beautiful collection of some more diverse materials, like slides, glass plates and microfilms and -fiches.
Glass plates
Our department manages a collection of over 4000 photographical glass positives. This is a type of photographic media that consists of a glass plate with a layer of photographic emulsion. The technique dates back to the mid-19th century and was still in popular use until the 1960s. As a predecessor of photographic film, the glass positive is among the oldest photographic material. They hold an important historic value, but due to their age they are often extremely fragile.
Our collection of glass plates can be divided into two subcollections. The first, which is also the oldest, originally belonged to the Koninklijk Aardrijkskundig Genootschap (KAGA, Royal Geographical Institute Antwerp), a scientific institution that attracted explorers, geographers and other scientists to share their knowledge between the 1880s and 1970s. Their glass positives largely depict geographical material that was useful to their researchers. The other subcollection contains the illustrated material about art history that was used by researchers like professor De Wolf who taught at the former Saint-Ignatius Trade School (predecessor of the UFSIA).
Slides
Project still in progress.
Microfilm and microfiche
Project still in progress.